Phoenix office shooting: Manhunt continues, one person dead

A member of the Phoenix Police Department SWAT team leads a female neighbor… (Ross D. Franklin / Associated…)

A manhunt is underway for a 70-year-old man suspected of fatally shooting a man and injuring two others Wednesday morning at an office building in Phoenix, police said.

Phoenix police said early Wednesday that at least five people had been shot but later confirmed that three people were struck.

Arthur Douglas Harmon fired a gun after meeting with other people on some pending litigation, Sgt. Steve Martos of the Phoenix Police Department said.

"Apparently it was not the outcome he expected and so on his way out this is what happened," Martos told the Los Angeles Times.

Harmon is suspected of killing Steve Singer, 48, and injuring a 43-year-old man who is in critical condition. A 32-year-old woman was also shot, Sgt. Tommy Thompson said.

Other individuals were treated for stress-related symptoms.

It appears the incident was not a random shooting, Thompson added. Singer and the 43-year-old man were intended targets, Thompson said. It's possible that the woman was an unintended victim.

The gunman left the office complex in the 7300 block of 16th Street in a 2013 white Kia Optima that was rented, police said. The vehicle's license plate reads AVS2052. Police later searched a home for the gunman, but he was not there.

The shooting came on the same day former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was badly wounded two years ago in a shooting in Tucson, testified on gun control on Capitol Hill.

Former astronaut Mark Kelly, who testified along with his wife, Giffords, at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun control issues, interrupted his testimony to break the news of the Phoenix shooting. After Kelly was asked a question by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) about his support of background checks for gun owners, Kelly prefaced his response by saying:

“While we were having this hearing -- and we certainly don’t know the details -- but in Phoenix, Ariz., there is another, what seems to be possibly a shooting with multiple victims. And it doesn’t seem like anybody’s been killed, but the initial reports are three people injured in Phoenix, Ariz., with multiple shots fired and there are 50 or so police cars on the scene."

Then he answered the question.

“And I certainly agree with you, sir, that a universal background check that is effective, that has the mental health records in it, that has the criminal records in it, will go a long way toward saving people’s lives.”